Presidential First Lady. Her life was actually a unique two part American march to fame and immortality. Her early life with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where as a mother of five children and the first lady of the land, saw her active in Democratic politics while helping to shape her Husband's New Deal program. After the death of the President, she became an identity in her own right, lecturing and writing. (Her syndicated newspaper column, "My Day", started in 1936 and ran until a month before her death) She advocated racial equality, women's rights and world peace. Her resignation from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939 after the organization refused to let Marian Anderson sing at Independence Hall because of her color set the early tone for the civil rights movement. She was the only person to hold the position of a public member of the United States delegation to the United Nations, where she chaired the Commission on Human Rights. In the summer of 1962, she was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. Realizing the end was near, she convinced doctors to discontinue treatment while returning to her apartment in New York City where she remained until her death at the age of 78. Her remains were taken to Hyde Park where a private service was held at St. James Episcopal Church and concluded with a public graveside service attended by many dignitaries and all the nation's living presidents. Adlai Stevenson gave the eulogy, the person she supported in his two failed attempts for the presidency. Burial followed next to her husband in the Rose Garden at Hyde Park. The United Nations posthumously awarded its first Human Rights Prize to Eleanor Roosevelt. (bio by: Donald Greyfield)